'Against Gravity is a wonderfully quirky but seriously written comedy, in the
ancient Greek sense of a revel through reality with a happy outcome. Drawing
it's characters from the upper echelons of Melbourne University, it is also a
sharply satirical portrayal of academic life and social mores.

While Sir Hiram Pomfret, a world renowned neurophysiologist, and the Reverend
Neville Cardigan struggle with the moral question of science and religion at
the turn of the millennium, Pomfret's daughter-in-law Delia finds herself, as a
geneticist, in a profession reviled by feminists and New Age spiritualists
alike.It is Delia's journey through alienation and self-discovery that really
shape the novel. Her husband - who has forever been under the shadow of his
famous father, even though he is now a successful academic neurosurgeon in his
own right - is a kleptomaniac and a womaniser.

Delia too has had a long
struggle with self-worth and how to define her place in the world, although her
family background is far down the scale from her husband's: she and her twin
brother were deserted by their parents and raised by an aunt, until Delia's
brother also leaves. When she discovers, many years later, her brother to be
the leader of a kooky new Age cult, with their mother in tow as a kind of
spiritual aide, her theories of genetic inheritance versus environment are
brought into even sharper relief.

The title of Against Gravity is a play on the idea of levity as opposed to
gravity, and is also a reference to the Newtonian force that pulls everyone
down eventually, in one way or another. In this novel people fall from high
places, they fall from grace, they fall under the limitations of age and
gender, they fall down the stairs. Against Gravity is not simply funny, it is a
profoundly witty investigation of morals, the debate between science and
religion, and life as a kind of divine joke.'